: peekaboo :

First of all, I owe Edward Snowden an apology. I dismissed him as a publicity-seeking nutjob when his initial accusations of government spying hit the media. Heh, heh, whoops. My mistake.

The latest news on those sneaky weasels at the National Security Agency (NSA) is that they’ve hacked into the overseas data centers of Google and Yahoo. Okay, who are these boobs? And are they part of the same government that can’t build a healthcare website? They are, but let’s be fair: would you rather be James Bond or Barnaby Jones? Me, too.

No one’s going to spend time on mundane stuff like insurance when there are constitutions to skirt and intrigues to plan. Espionage is a mighty temptress. Coding a crummy webpage is mind-numbing when compared to the thrill of tiptoeing, undetected, past the legendary security of Google. That, my intrepid friends, is irresistible.

In one 30-day period alone, they collected 181,280,466 different records. Holy bifocals, Batman — that’s a ton of reading! Clearly, they’re busy bees. Even Evelyn Wood (the speed-reading guru) would be daunted by such volume.

You expect furtive behavior from perverts and swindlers and employers, but not your own damn government. If they want to know what we’re thinking or doing or thinking of doing they should ask. I’ll tell them flat-out. I’ll cc them on my emails if they want. But, no, they’d rather creep around the dark, tangled recesses of the Internet with their silly cloak-and-dagger shenanigans.

Fine. Two can play that game.

Introducing Foiled Again¹, the tin foil helmet² designed to guard your thoughts from the prying eyes of gub’mint spies and mind readers. Keeping your thoughts to yourself isn’t as easy as it used to be. Not when the NSA can hack into Google, for crying out loud. Your cerebral cortex could be next.

Fortunately, Foiled Again is guaranteed to shield your brain from electromagnetic fields and other assorted intruders. Available in sizes S to XXL. Only $149.95 plus S&H. That’s a small price to pay for peace of mind. Order yours today.

There’s also usually a correlation between tin foil, teeth (lack of) and banjos playing in the background. Those American campgrounds out in no-man’s-land are ripe for meeting very interesting people, especially the conspiracy theory genre. This would have also taken place in the early to mid 70’s…just to give context. Makes you want to run right out and rent a tent trailer, no?

“I always feel like someone is watching me,” is a song. No wait. It’s reality. I live in the shadow of World Trade Center 1 in Manhattan. Every now and again there are SWAT team types just hanging around the corner with automatic weapons. So, I have mixed emotions.
I want safety. But why does the government have to have so many fingers in every web search I do? I think there’s some invisible Rubicon that was passed some time ago that we were not notified had been crossed. We finally are starting to know where we stand and are learning that all the privacy we imagined we had we maybe never did. It’s all very surreal as you make plain.
Since I have a larger than average head, I’d like the extra large tin foil hat please. Great post!

Like you, I wonder when we crossed the Rubicon, but the real question is: can we ever put the genie back in the bottle? I don’t see how that’s possible. I’m afraid we’ve lost something here that can’t be restored. Was it worth the cost?